In the latest news and headlines on our DC Forecasts crypto news site, we are focusing on the digital assets platform Bakkt which was created by the operator of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and which yesterday announced the completion of its first funding round in an official blog post. As the blog post unveiled, the crypto platform that is geared towards institutional investors has raised $182.5 million from 12 partners and investors. We already reported that Bakkt delayed its Bitcoin futures launch for 2019 and perhaps now is the right time to make a new leap forward. The partners and investors include major names such as ICE, Boston Consulting Group, Galaxy Digital, Goldfinch Partners, Alan Howard, Horizons Ventures, Microsoft’s venture capital arm and Pantera Capital. In the announcement, Bakkt also noted that the company is working with US regulators – such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – in order to obtain “regulatory approval for physically delivered and warehoused bitcoin,” adding:

“We have filed our applications and the timing for approval is now based on the regulatory review process.”

Aside from this, ICE separately announced in a notice that the firm “expects to provide an updated launch timeline in early 2019, for the trading, clearing and warehousing of the Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) Daily Futures Contract.” ICE first announced plans to create a Microsoft cloud-powered “open and regulated, global ecosystem for digital assets” in August last year, as we reported at the time.